This is an intensive comparative study of historical fluctuations in public order within at least four societies over periods of a century and a half. The study will focus on major cities to facilitate comparisons and to increase the applicability of results to recent experience in the urban U.S. The cities of first choice are London, Sydney, Calcutta, and Stockholm (or Copenhagen), each to be studied beginning ca. 1800; alternative cities are Hamburg, Paris, and Philadelphia. Five empirical questions are raised. (1) What are the periods of major increases and decreases in levels and types of criminality in these cities? (2) What major demographic and economic changes precede or accompany these major changes? (3) What changes in patterns of political legitimacy, public order systems, and judicial administration accompany major changes in criminality? (4) How do definitions of and treatment approaches to crime vary with changes in criminality? (5) What treatment approaches seem to have been most effective in restoring public order after major increases in criminality? Each city will be the subject of a socio-historical analysis, dealing with each of a specified set of variables and categories derived from the above questions. Quantitative analyses will be used to supplement narrative interpretations. Multiple, approximate indicators of some basic variables will be devised, using a combination of judgmental information and "hard" data. Marked increases, and decreases, in criminal activity will be used as cases; indicators of social strain and social control variables will be correlated with indicators of the extent of increase, and decrease, in criminality.